Bridget Whelan had to leave her home in Ireland at a young age. She needed to work in England. There, she met her husband and had two daughters. This video looks at where Bridget’s parents came from in Ireland.
The Wayside Log
In 1879 Robert Tomlinson was tasked by the Church Missionary Society to establish a new mission in British Columbia’s northwest. From their mission at Kincolith they left, crossing rivers and mountains, they finally found a place that the First Nations had named Ankihtlast (Robert’s spelling). The WaySide Log is a diary kept by Alice Tomlinson (nee Woods), with parts written by her brother Ned, detailing their trek in 1879. This video provides a brief glimpse of the trip.
Word Clouds
Having some fun with word clouds of the family tree today.
But, I think I actually like the heart even better.
A quick explanation of autosomal DNA
Autosomal DNA (atDNA) is a great tool for identifying and confirming shared ancestry because of the way it is passed down to each person. We can use atDNA to explore and find additional relatives that we may not have previously known about by taking a DNA test through providers such as Ancestry or FTDNA and allowing our atDNA to be matched with others. This could assist us in breaking through a brick wall by discovering lines we were not previously aware of. We can also use atDNA to help us confirm our suspected ancestral lines by having others within that line test their atDNA. Adoptees can use atDNA to find family members which could ultimately lead to finding their biological parents.[i]
We can do this because atDNA is inherited from both parents, who in turn inherited their atDNA from both of their parents, and so on down the line. A child receives approximately 50% of their DNA from their father and the other 50% from their mother, who in turn each received approximately 50% from their parents.[ii] This process is, however, not linear. The inheritance occurs within our 22 (44 matches pairs) of chromosomes using a process called recombination (you have 46 total chromosomes, the last 2 are the XX or XY that determine the sex). This process is an independent one that occurs during meiosis, where each of the sex cells, one from the sperm and one from the egg, combines and recombines to receive a random assortment of genes from the parent[iii].
Figure 1 Recombination
So, that means that while, in theory, you could receive 25% of your atDNA from each of your grandparents, you most likely do not because of the random nature of the recombination, as shown in the image below.
Figure 2 Randomness of inheritance pattern
Autosomal DNA matches may confirm a relationship, but not the type of relationship. Due to the random way the recombination works, it is possible that you will not share DNA with a relative, particularly past 5-7 generations. Matching tools used for atDNA can show a match, but not whether that match is on the paternal or material side, therefore further analysis is always necessary when a match is found. A further limitation is that it is also possible that you may have shared atDNA due to sections being IBS (identical by state) or identical by chance rather than IBD (identical by descent).
[i] University of Strathclyde Centre for Lifelong Learning (2021) Understanding autosomal DNA testing for genealogy: a beginner’s guide. Class 1 Introduction to DNA Testing.
[ii] Bettinger, Blaine T. (2019) The Family Tree Guide to DNA testing and genetic genealogy, 2nd Edition. Penguin Publishing Group.
[iii] University of Strathclyde Centre for Lifelong Learning (2021) Understanding autosomal DNA testing for genealogy: a beginner’s guide. Class 2 Autosomal DNA testing.
The adventures of Dottie – Dublin
This is the first in what may (or may not) become an ongoing saga. Dottie is fictional.
Dottie smiled as she spotted the Kevin Street Garda Station up ahead. That meant that she was almost at the National Archives of Ireland. She was enjoying the brief sunshine today after the downpour that happened in Dublin yesterday. Thank goodness she had been to Ireland before and knew to carry rain gear with her at all times. She loved being able to walk from “Gerry’s Place” the Air BnB she had rented for the week, but especially enjoyed it when the sun was out.
With only three more days of her vacation trip in Dublin, she needed to focus today. It was so difficult, there were so many wonderful documents in archive it was tempting to look at everything. Her focus this morning would be on the Berry family. While she had been given information in a family tree, she needed to prove the genealogical information. With the popularity of genealogy today, there was as much mis-information out there as there was good solid data.
Crossing the intersection at Bishop Street she ran lightly up the steps to the doors. Showing her reader ticket to the gentleman at reception, she quickly signed in and headed to the locker room to store her outdoor clothes and gear. She locked her gear in her favourite locker, two over on the right and three down from the top, and locked the clear glass door. Knowing she could use the pencils they provided in the reading room, she only kept her iPad and note paper with her and headed for the elevator.
Once through the door, Dottie picked up a pencil from the reception desk and headed to the right toward the testamentary records catalogues. Today she looked through the Wills cards. The small cards were stored in file drawers like the ones she used to see in the library when she was a child. “Imagine not having this information digitally yet, so many people are not aware it is here”. She didn’t expect to find much. Knowing about the Four Courts Fire in 1922 she knew that the chances of finding records that survived were pretty slim. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
She went directly to the “B”s and searched through cards. As they appeared to be in alphabetic order she jumped ahead to the “Ber” looking for Berry.
“Good golly, Miss Molly” she thought as she spotted a card with the right name and a year of 1816. She glanced over at the reception desk and saw that it was Fintan on duty. Fintan was in his twenties and eager to be helpful. She quickly pulled the card from the file, tipping the card behind it to mark its place and headed for the desk, glancing around on the way to select an open table for her request. Grabbing a yellow order docket slip she double checked with Fintan that she was requesting the right document. Confirmed all the details, she left the request with Fintan and hurried back to replace the card in the appropriate spot before she got into trouble for removing it.
Dottie placed her note paper on her selected desk to reserve her spot and then walked back over to the card files. She went back through the cards and looked at all the cards in the “B” drawer individually in case there were any that were misfiled. While she did find a few misfiled cards, which she put into their proper order, there were no other cards with the Berry name. She glanced over at her desk and noticed that the documents had arrived.
Opening the folder Dottie saw that there were multiple pages and it was a certified copy of the will and grant of Thomas Berry. It might be just the document she needed to confirm some of the ancestors in the Berry family. She took her time reading the pages, thinking to herself “what an absolute goldmine”. Not only had Thomas mentioned each of his living children in the twelve-page document, he mentioned his son that passed before he did, and a brother, as well as his sons-in-law.
After reading the will, Dottie set about taking pictures of the document. She used the provided weights to hold the document as flat as possible while taking pictures with her iPad. Tonight, she would upload those pictures to her Evernote account to ensure that she had a second copy on the cloud. She was looking forward to putting all the information on her computer once she was back in Canada in a couple of weeks. This trip was definitely proving to be well worth it as far as gathering genealogical proof was concerned.
She then returned the document to the returns desk in the small room next to the card catalogue. Then, Dottie spent the rest of the morning looking through the card catalogue for other families that she was researching without luck. However, she was happy with a morning well spent. Dottie smiled a satisfied smile headed down in the elevator thinking about where she would have lunch after picking up her gear from the locker.
